Two men charged for crime spree

MOSS­MAN De­tec­tives have charged a 17-year-old Lock­hart River man with 17 charges and a 45-year-old Thurs­day Is­land man with seven af­ter a crime spree in Moss­man.

Last Sun­day, April 29, the pair al­legedly stole a ve­hi­cle from a busi­ness in Cairns and drove to Moss­man and the fol­low­ing day stole fuel from a Moss­man ser­vice sta­tion, but put in diesel and aban­doned the car once it broke down.

Moss­man po­lice spot­ted the men in South Moss­man on Alchera Dr and when they spoke to the men, the 17-year-old ran- off into a cane field.

That night, the men broke into a house on Alchera Dr while the res­i­dents were sleep­ing and took the car keys and stole a ve­hi­cle from the garage.

The car was dam­aged and left in a ditch be­tween Moss­man and Port Dou­glas and the of­fend­ers found their way back and broke into sev­eral other premises in the Moss­man CBD, steal­ing al­co­hol, a wal­let, car keys and an­other ve­hi­cle.

The men were caught on CCTV at the Craiglie ser­vice sta­tion af­ter steal­ing fuel for the third stolen ve­hi­cle and driv­ing to Cairns and dam­ag­ing then aban­don­ing the ve­hi­cle.

The 45-year-old Thurs­day Is­land man was recog­nised by po­lice on Tues­day and was ar­rested and taken to Smith­field where Moss­man de­tec­tives in­ter­viewed and charged him with seven charges in­clud­ing three counts of un­law­ful use of mo­tor ve­hi­cle, two charges of steal­ing, one charge of un­law­ful as­sault and one charge break into premises and steal.

The 17-year-old Lock­hart River man was then ar­rested fol­low­ing a foot chase through the Cairns CBD and was taken to the Watch House and faced court yes­ter­day charged with 17 crim­i­nal charges.

Moss­man Crim­i­nal In­ves­ti­ga­tion Branch de­tec­tive Trevor Per­ham said these in­ci­dents demon­strate “we are not im­mune to this type of be­hav­iour”.

“Although Moss­man and Port Dou­glas en­dure rel­a­tively less crime than some other parts of Queens­land, I still urge res­i­dents and vis­i­tors to be vig­i­lant with home se­cu­rity and lock their premises, houses, ve­hi­cles and se­cure valu­ables,” he said.

Photo by PAUL BUT­LER

Ward­ing off bad spir­its: the smok­ing cer­e­mony at the new Moss­man Gorge Vis­i­tors’ Cen­tre